Tuesday, 25 June 2013

Small businesses have had their own share of the recent economic crisis that rock the world. While many have absorbed the shook and moved on, others are still struggling with the effects of the recession.

Recently, D&B an organisation that provides insights and actionable information to support small business growth offered some tips on how small businesses can recover, grow and succeed during challenges. These principles include

Make use of data: The big businesses are not the only ones who need data to make decisions, small businesses should also take advantage of it to improve on their business decisions.

Be transparent with your business: Small businesses that share information on themselves are more likely to get access to capita.

Get personal with your customers: Small businesses stand a chance of developing a one-on-one relationship with their customers more than big businesses. Make use of all the channels possible to keep the interaction going on with them.

Don't be restricted: Explore new markets, seek for new opportunities, and develop new strategies.

Make resilience the norm: Adaptive and agile small businesses are responsive and ready for change

It is only the very wisest and the very stupidest whocannot change. -- ConfuciusWe are either progressing or retrograding all the while;there is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life. -- James Freeman Clarke

To conquer oneself is the best and noblest victory; to bevanquished by one's own nature is the worst and mostignoble defeat. -- Plato

2. A startup is a human institutiondesigned to deliver a new product or serviceunder conditions of extreme uncertainty. - Eric Ries

3. A startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. - Steve Blank:

From the definitions above, a start-up is not yet a business, it is more like a moving object without precised direction and destination under high level of uncertainty, and its operations are temporal until it finds a proper business model.

Herbert
Dow founded Dow Chemical in Midland, Michigan when he invented a way to
produce bromine cheaply. He sold the chemical for industrial purposes
all over the US for 36 cents per pound at the turn of the 20th century.
He couldn't go overseas, however, because the international market was
controlled by a giant German chemical cartel that sold it at a fixed
price of 49 cents per pound. It was understood that the Germans would
stay out of the US market so long as Dow and the other American
suppliers stayed within its borders.

Eventually Dow's business
was in trouble and he had to expand. He took his bromine to England and
easily beat the cartel's fixed price of 49 cents per pound. Things were
okay for a while until a German visitor came to Michigan and threatened
Dow that he had to cease and desist. Dow didn't like being told what to
do and told the cartel to get lost.

Shortly thereafter German
bromine started appearing for sale in the US for 15 cents per pound, way
below Dow's price. The cartel flooded the US market, offering the
chemical way below their own costs, intending to drive Dow out of
business. But Dow outsmarted them. He stopped selling in the US market
entirely and instead arranged for someone to secretly start buying up
all the German bromine he could get his hands on. Dow repackaged it as
his own product, shipped it to Europe, and made it widely available
(even in Germany) at 27 cents per pound. The Germans were wondering 1)
why wasn't Dow out of business and 2) why was there suddenly such demand
for bromine in the US??

The cartel lowered its price to 12 cents
and then 10 cents. Dow just kept buying more and more, gaining huge
market share in Europe. Finally the Germans caught on and had to lower
their prices at home. Dow had broken the German chemical monopoly and
expanded his business greatly. And customers got a wider range of places
to buy bromine at lower prices.

Dow went on to do the same trick
to the German dye and magnesium monopolies. This is now the textbook
way to deal with predatory price cutting.